INSPIRATION:When working at home, clearing my credit card, bank statements, and bills etc, I usually just tore them up and threw them into the dust bin. But then I asked myself. "Is it safe enough? What would happen if somebody got hold of my documents? What could they do with them? Nothing good, for sure." At this time I thought it would be great to have a paper shredder. But electrical shredders are too big to put on my desk and it would take up space on the floor. If only I had something smaller, nice looking and serve the purpose that I could keep handy on my desk. Thus the "HandiShred was born.

UNIQUE PROPERTIES / PROJECT DESCRIPTION:New concepts in operation, clean and neat design, small and compact so you can simply store it inside a drawer or put it on your desk for easy access.

OPERATION / FLOW / INTERACTION:Folds a piece of document to fit into the slot, and then follow the "PAPER IN" direction on HandiShred and feed the folded document into the entry. Twist both ends in opposite directions and shred it.

PROJECT DURATION AND LOCATION:The project started in April 2009 and finished in October 2010, and was exhibited in MEGA SHOW HONG KONG in October 2010.

FITS BEST INTO CATEGORY:Unexpected Design

PRODUCTION / REALIZATION TECHNOLOGY:It is small and nice looking that you wouldn't mind keeping it on your desk and serve the purpose.
The blades and the shafts are made of stainless steel, the plastic body is ABS.

TAGS:HandiShred is a portable manual paper shredder and does not require any electrical power.

RESEARCH ABSTRACT:Inspired by actual necessity in actual daily life.
- Study how papers are shredded.
- Study how the blades are designed.
- Note the size of paper to be shredded (bills, bank statements etc.)
- Build sample of the shredding disk to test its cutting efficiency.
- Test the force needed to shred paper by men and women.
- Determine the best size that works as a shredder and yet users won't mind keeping on their desks. Tested with 15 individuals.
- Sketch design proposals.
- Build dummy samples of different proposals.
- Finalize design and build working mock-ups.
- Evaluation of the design by a customer test group.
- Modify the design: To have the twisting ends rubberized for better grip.
- Start tooling and packaging design.
- Engineering build from tool-out parts.
- Modify alignment of disc-modify tooling.
- Second engineering build, send samples to consumer test group for comments.
- Minor modification on tooling.
- Pilot run to build 200 pieces
- Send samples out to existing customers.

CHALLENGE: The challenging part is to design the cutting disk in the right material, inexpensive, durable and their alignment.

Handishred Paper Shredder by Yen Lau is a Nominee in Home Appliances Design Category.

· This project is currently confidential as results have not been announced yet. Images and further details of the project is not available for public yet, please check back later. If you are the owner of this design, please login to view the images.